


Noldolantë

by ForErusSake



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Music, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Songs of Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 04:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11120175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForErusSake/pseuds/ForErusSake
Summary: Deep in the night Maedhros wanders through the fortress of Himring. Unlike usual, he isn't the only one awake. Deep in the night, Maglor sings a song, a beautiful Song, a sad Song, a haunting Song. Deep in the night, he writes what would become his most famous work, but Songs of Power are dangerous, and so are the memories used to conjure them.





	Noldolantë

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me for any mistakes, English is not my native language.

It was dark in the fortress of Himring. At this hour, Maedhros was often the only one still awake. He haunted the halls and corridors of his own home like a ghost. He could never find any rest, he couldn’t sleep. He tried, he had to, at times, but when he did his memories of the torturous years spent in Morgoth’s stronghold kept him from truly getting any rest.  
  
At this hour of the night, it was quiet, or it usually was. This night however, the silence was broken by a haunting melody, drifting through the hallways of the fortress like a cloud of dust, partly obscuring the blue glow of the Fëanorian lanterns hanging from the curved ceilings, and blanketing the stone tiles with a nigh tangible layer of misery and despair.  
  
He followed the music, down the stairs, past the kitchens and the great halls, through narrow walkways and down broad colonnades, until he found its source. Shrouded by the harsh shadows of the heavy granite columns he looked out into the lifeless, snow-covered gardens.  
  
There he found him. Sitting with his back against the wall, clothed in nothing but his blue linen nightgown, was his brother. His dark hair cascaded down his shoulders like a waterfall, his head rested back against the wall, his ghostly pale face turned up towards the star-lit sky. In his arms rested his harp. The instrument had been gifted to him in Valinor and was his most cherished possession. His brother’s half-frozen fingers plucked at the strings in a strangely mechanical way, and with the eerie sound of the strings travelled the ethereal sound of his voice.  
  
Standing this close he could feel the power of his brother’s Song reverberating through him, pounding in his ears, clawing at his skull. He could feel the pain, the despair, wrapping itself around his heart like an ice-cold hand, spreading through his body, burning through his veins like poison.  
  
It gnawed at the foundations of the fortress, chomped on the walls and shook the hill itself.  
  
The haunting beauty of the Song was breathtaking, but so near to the source it was nearly unbearable to witness.  
  
Maedhros stepped out of the shadows and towards his brother, and then the images came.  
  
Images of Míriel’s still form, bound by a sleep from which she would never awaken, of a sword, pointed at his uncle’s throat, of the Silmarils, shining bright in the light of the Two Trees, of Finwë’s broken, butchered body, lying lifeless in the courtyard of Formenos, of a foolish Oath, spoken in anger, of a once white beach, soaked red with blood, of dead bodies, _broken, butchered, bloodied, wrecked, mutilated, murdered, maimed, crushed._  
  
He remembered the tears on his brother’s face as he stood over the body of the innocent sailor who had been his first victim, but wouldn’t be his last.  
  
_Broken… butchered… bloodied… wrecked…_  
  
Maglor had never forgiven their father for what had happened that day. He had killed. He had forever lost his innocence. He had brutally slaughtered innocent people.  
  
_Mutilated… murdered… maimed… crushed…_  
  
A part of his brother had died in Alqualondë. A part of his sanity got left behind. After Alqualondë it had been easy. Maglor slaughtered his enemies with a mechanical efficiency, with a calculated ruthlessness that not even Fëanor himself had possessed.  
  
_Broken… butchered… bloodied… wrecked…_  
  
He didn’t care anymore about the dead bodies he left behind, as long as he got the job done.  
  
_Mutilated… murdered… maimed… crushed…_  
  
In battle, their younger brothers were raucous, their loud voices filled the battlefield with angry screams and victory-cries. Maglor was quiet, but his silence was as deadly as his sword. Caranthir had once joked that his second oldest brother could kill a man just by looking at him, and Maedhros wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t true.  
  
He had always been quiet. So unlike his father in everything but the colour of his hair. When he was a child, he stammered his way through every sentence he uttered and he was not a very good smith, try as he might. Any other apprentice would’ve already been given up on, would’ve been told to try something else, that he wasn’t suited for the craft, but he wasn’t just any apprentice. He was Curufinwë Fëanáro’s second son, and as such, he was expected to create beauty out of a chunk of metal just by looking at it.  
  
Much later, when they had brutally murdered the Teleri, had left their cousins on the other side of the ocean, expecting them to turn back, had watched the corpse of their father burn to ashes as his fiery spirit finally broke free of its cage of flesh and bone, when their uncle had become High King and his brother ruled in Himring, he was still not a good smith. He was still quiet, but for a different reason.  
  
He’d long since gotten over the stammering. Singing had helped with that. Where most people had thought that he so rarely spoke because he was shy, his music teacher had noticed early on that he kept silent, that he stammered, not because he was shy, but because he was afraid. He was afraid of not being like his father, and of being shunned for it. He had often come to Maedhros’ rooms back then, when he couldn’t sleep, because he worried too much, and Maedhros had held him until his fears subsided. But she was the one who had truly helped him, she had taught him not to be afraid. She’d taught him to sing when his fears threatened to overwhelm him. She’d taught him to sing when he couldn’t speak. She’d discovered his talent for music, had hauled him away from the forge to practice playing his harp. The age difference between them hadn’t mattered, she had been his first friend.  
  
Nowadays, he had lots of people who pretended to be his friends, because they wanted something from him. Even if his brother ruled the land, Maglor never felt safe. As far as he was concerned they were in enemy territory and no one could be trusted.  
  
Maedhros had the reputation of being a fierce warrior. He had survived over thirty years of torture at the hands of their enemy and people respected him for it.  
  
Maglor was different. The respect people showed him generally did not come from awe at his deeds and skills, though his music was highly praised, but from fear.  
  
When the forces of Himring captured an enemy spy, Maglor was the one who would go in to ‘talk’ to them. He would lock himself in with the prisoner and emerge from the interrogation room with all the information they needed. Prisoners he interrogated emerged from the experience with no more injury than that with which they had entered, but they were left a gibbering mess nonetheless, with no physical explanation to account for their state.  
It had given Maglor the reputation of being able to make a man go insane by just looking at him.  
  
While the images clawed at his mind, trying to break into the vault where he kept his nightmares when he was awake, he approached his brother, until he was close enough that the music physically hurt him. He blinked the tears from his eyes as he raised his hands to cover his ears and felt the warm blood trickling down his neck and face.  
  
He looked at his brother and saw the despair on his face, the way his eyes stared at the sky, un-seeing. He saw the way his brow was furrowed in anger and fear. He saw the cuts and blisters on his brother’s fingers, staining the white strings of his harp red with his blood. He saw how his brother exposed his pale throat by tilting his head upwards, as if he was waiting for someone to do what he himself dared not, cut it. End it.  
  
The images his brother’s haunting Song generated where overwhelming.  
  
Images of bloody battlefields littered with corpses, of Balrogs fighting against a single, dark-haired figure, of people looking at him with hatred and distrust, and of burning ships, of his youngest brother’s screams as he burned to death, the thick, black smoke filling his lungs and making him cough as tears ran down his cheeks.  
  
He stumbled the last metres to where Maglor was sitting against the wall and dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around his brother.  
  
The Song pounded in his ears, filling his mind with sorrow, pulling at the hinges of the door that kept his nightmares locked up. It would’ve been so easy to give in, to let wave after wave of despair wash over him and pull him down until he choked. Instead he breathed in, and sang.  
  
It wasn’t a Song of Power, like his brother was unconsciously conjuring, but a simple nursery rhyme. A simple song that their mother used to sing for them when they couldn’t sleep.  
  
He sang with all his might against the images his brother called forth and found that they couldn’t harm him anymore. He rubbed soothing circles on his brother’s back and slowly, the images subsided altogether. His brother raised his rough voice to meet his and finished the Song with the last words of their mother’s lullaby.  
  
And then he was quiet.  
  
To the people of Himring, Maglor’s silence was discomforting, for they only knew his silence from the battlefield. They found Maglor’s singing to be more joyous than his silence, and once, they would have been right.  
  
As a child Maglor had turned to his music when he was sad, nowadays, he rarely ever played in front of an audience, and when he did, it was all an act. He put on the face of the cheerful composer from Valinor, who sang his songs to spread that cheerfulness. But that cheerful composer from Valinor no longer existed.  
  
He gently pulled his brother up into his arms and stood. He walked quietly into the fortress so as to not wake anyone. It was early yet, and he thought his brother might yet get some sleep before Anor would rise.  
  
He traced his steps back towards his own sleeping chambers, as those were closer than his brother’s. He entered the room to find that the fire in the hearth had not yet gone out. He gently lowered his brother’s cold form onto the bed and pulled the covers over him.  
  
When he was a child, Maglor was silent because he was afraid. Nowadays, he found his comfort in silence. He trusted no one, and he kept silent so they couldn’t turn his words against him. He was angry, and he kept silent so that it wouldn’t show. He was afraid, of the things his voice could do, and he kept silent, so that it wouldn’t.  
  
The rumours said that it was his silence that drove prisoners mad, but it wasn’t. It was his voice.  
  
Maedhros found comfort in his brother’s silence, because Maglor found comfort in it.  
  
He remembered Maglor’s visits to his rooms back in Valinor, when he had been nearly in tears from fear of not being good enough. He remembered how he had held him and comforted him, until music had replaced him as Maglor’s source of comfort.  
  
But his music was no comfort to Maglor anymore.  
  
Gently Maedhros pulled the covers up and climbed into bed next to his younger brother.  
  
If his music could no longer keep his brother safe, then he would.  
  
Suddenly he saw an image in his mind of his brother, walking down the coast, playing a haunting melody on his harp, singing his Song. As he walked into the distance he turned around once more and mouthed a single word at Maedhros.  
  
“Noldolantë,” Maedhros whispered.  
  
Next to him, Maglor stirred, looked at him, and understood.  
  
“Yes, that is what it will be called, The Fall of the Noldor,” Maglor muttered, then sighed and rested his head against his brother’s shoulder, his breathing quickly evening out into a deep sleep.  
  
The name sounded eerie, but somehow, that didn’t bother him. His brother was composing again, like he hadn’t done since they had left Valinor.  
  
Maybe his brother wasn’t entirely broken yet, maybe there was still hope.

Maybe “the Fall of the Noldor” could be Maglor's redemption.  
  
Maybe.

Right now it didn't matter, for in the arms of his brother, Maedhros slept. For the first time since Fingon had rescued him from Thangorodrim, Maedhros Fëanorion slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this, reviews are always appreciated :)


End file.
